collecting in buckets . . .

This, my friends, is a science fair project in the making!

It's not actually a science fair project, but when I was constructing it the other day when it was raining in the HALLWAY, it seemed certainly to be just like what one would be.

Here's the deal. Because the wind was so vicious last week, several shingles blew off the roof and into the neighboring field, along with things like the BBQ cover, the worm bin lid, and a few other "this, that, and what have yous". As a result, there were several leaks in the hallway ceiling upstairs. I had put several buckets and trash cans out to catch the rain, but was unable to capture it all because it kept finding new ways to leak. That's when I resorted to the Ohio Handbook on Dealing with Elements. Actually it is not a handbook at all, it was a conversation I had with my mother who has delt with leaky roofs all her life. (I remember as a child seeing buckets strategically placed in our home to catch the rain) This time she told me of a new way of channeling the water so it collects in one bucket, and makes NO dripping noise at all. Taping plastic trash bags to funnel the rain to one area, poking a hole in the lowest point, then running a string down to the bucket did the trick! I also took a little creative liscence and poked string into the plaster and tied it to the main artery as pictured above. I LOVED IT.

feeling like spring . . .

It is beginning to feel like spring! Today was a warm 63 and I felt like it was summer compared to the weather we have been having. It is crazy how a few degrees changes the whole outlook of the day. Spring feels like it is right around the corner.

We are beginning to make some plans about how we are going to plant and get animals this spring not having our farm home yet. Some friends have offered some land to "borrow" to plant some crops, and we are thinking of boarding a cow at the neighbors house. SOUNDS CRAZY but we need to start now.

The children are all getting over HORRIBLE colds and coughs and the younger ones are on the tale end of the Whooping Cough. This has been our first "real" winter season so I am hoping that next year we will have built up some immunity to the freezing, cold weather.

going somewhere . . .

Well, we went and saw the house of our dreams today . . . and it wasn't the house of our dreams. :( Beautiful home, great land layout, woods, barns, you name it, it had it. However, you could hear the highway like it was a CD of traffic noise you have playing in a set of amplified headphones, the 115 acres next to it was going to be auctioned off, and WHO KNOWS what would go in right next to it, and the house, even though it was WONDERFUL, would not function for a large family that spends lots of time together in the same place. So it is back to hunting again.

On the school/work front, change is in the air AGAIN. I told my supervisor that I would not be returning to that school next year. I decided that I am willing to stay in the city schools, if there is another opening, but am not returning to the middle school I am working in now. Long story short, the ship is going somewhere that I don't want to go. No hard feelings, no regrets, I am just getting off at the next stop. And the next stop could not come TOO SOON!

another art site . . .

Recently I have started so many new things. I am feeling a little stretched. Now that my online store at etsy is up and running, I have joined another art site to upload images to make them available. The site is called Imagekind and it is a place where you can buy prints of artwork from artists. My site is located at gfout.imagekind.com and I now have a few images uploaded.

In addition, I have started to teach an online class at Drawspace.com. Not an intense class yet but just getting my feet wet with the forum and the ways that I can disseminate information. As well, this month I have joined an Artist Trading Card swap with 18 people from around the world. We decided on the theme of cats and now are making little minature works of art to send to each other. I chose to do pencil and colored pencil graphic drawing for the first several of them. I still have 10 more to do before the 7th of March. Shouldn't be a problem.

I have finally called some property management companies to help me with renting out my Aldora house. It has sat empty for a year now with me paying the mortgage and it is HIGH TIME to get someone in it to rent.

It is still snowing here and we are finally feeling the effects of living in the North. I asked Ildi today is she had getten enough snow for the year, she just smiled, with the look in her eyes that said "when is spring coming"?

Next week we get to look at that house from the previous post. We all can hardly wait. It is only 10 minutes from this house and we have driven by a few times to check it out from the outside. Lasy week when the previous snow melted and left LAKES in the fields we drove by to see if any of the land floods. Some does, but it is only in the woods. No water stands even near the house at all.

not getting attached . . .

Today it is 42 degrees. I can feel the hub-bub of SPRING in the air!

And today Ildi brewed some different coffee. I feel like I need to peel myself off the ceiling already (and it is before 8:00 am. :)

Today the boys and I are going to a gun show again. The bug of buying guns has not hot me, but I sure am open to getting another one if I find a good deal today. My main focus in going is to just spend time talking to my neighbor as we meander through all the ammunition.

On the homestead front. We found a house/farm that could quite possibly be THE ONE. Both Ildi and I are trying not to get emotionally involved so early in the game. It is hard not to though, when you see a place that has EVERYTHING you want in a home. For those of you that have been praying for us to find the place, THANK YOU, and continue to ask God to lead us in this potential home/farm/homestead as well. The picture above is the house back when it was built in 1865. Like I said, we are trying to NOT get attached to it yet . . . but I am not sure that is going to happen. :)

into the drift . . .

Lately it seems that I have been constantly trying to get myself OUT of being stuck. Stuck in mud, in snow in my lane, and then last night in the ditch. What on earth is going on!

It all started a few weeks ago with the whole driving in the grass circle that we were making in the yard close to the house. That story, posted here, was an hour or so worth of work and a whole lot of learned lessons. And then there was the time that we went to the neighbors to visit and have supper. Since they live a half mile away, and it is winter, we drive over. There were some drifts in the lane but I did not think too much about it as I proceeded. About half way up . . . stuck again. Another twenty minutes or so and we finally got out and up to the house. Then Friday comes. Really cold in the morning so the school system decided to delay for a couple of hours. Great for me, I sit a little longer in the morning drinking coffee, working on something, and visiting with the family before I go to school at 10:00. Only this time the wind had blown A LOT OF SNOW in my lane about half way down so I had a decision to make. Do I just drive on it with the chance of getting stuck? Do I shovel it out and still be shoveling at midnight? (the lane is about a tenth of a mile long) Being the brave, and adventurous person I am, I get a running start and BOLT right into the drifts, traveling for about ten yards, and then . . . you're right . . . get STUCK. Little bit of digging, rocking the van back and forth, all to no avail. And the tracks that I made were already being covered by the snow being blown again! I am not writing this in anger about my circumstances. Actually, I am amazed at how many times I can get myself stuck in such a short time frame.

That's not all either. Yesterday we drove down to the southern part of Ohio to purchase another van. Ildi had been wanting a 15 passenger for a long time, so this was the time and place to get it. Without giving you the details of the white, 3500 Chevy Express 15 passenger, we were coming back home really late with our van. It was windy the entire way, and the last hour the winds picked up considerable and even blew a few vehicles off the road into the ditch. When we finally arrive to our own country road, I noticed that the wind had blown A WHOLE BUNCH OF SNOW in the road. Since it was late, the snow plows would not be running until the morning. So what did I do? Well, not learning my lesson from the day before, I bolted right into the drift in the road and then my senses came to me. I looked ahead and saw only more drifts to battle, so I stopped. Ildi, who had been following me this entire time, had stopped back in the road on the clear spot while she watched. What to do? . . . I thought. So I started to back up and then IT happened again. My back right rear slid into the ditch! Stuck AGAIN! Four times in less than a month.

an interesting balance . . .

Since our move to Ohio, I have been in quite the creative mode. Sure, I made art before moving here, but mostly I made it at school as examples for the students to get motivated by. Here, I have been making ART and stretching myself in my creativity. It reminds me of my undergraduate days working on pieces, critiquing, and striving to create unique art that was different and refreshing. As well as making art to post here, on my school blog, on Drawspace.com, and my NEW etsy acount, I have been dabbling in a little photography. Years ago I took a photography class back when we actually used film. Now, with my new digital EOS Cannon, I am able to take pictures and manipulate them in the GIMP program I downloaded from the interent. I worked on school yearbooks taking lots of pictures of people, but now I am interested in learning the art of capturing the portrait of someone that makes people cry. Here is my first attempt at family portraits. The Allens needed updated photos for their family album they display on the wall of the living room. I used a zom lens hoping to create an interesting balance between the clear focus of their faces, and the items in the background. For these shots I had them sit in the pew of the church they are pastoring and look back at me. Two great things occured for me as a photographer. One, the cross and some of the relics of the pulpit where blurred into the background. Two, the three stained windows that were behind me reflected in the children's eyes. I am still working trying to figure all the buttons out on this new camera, and the tools available on the software.

trick of the trade . . .

It's REALLY cold here now. -14 with a wind chill factor of 30 below. WOWSY!

A couple of new tricks of the trade and that I have learned when dealing with the cold weather.

1. Stack bales of straw around the base of your house to deter the weather from freezing your pipes.

2. Put a heat lamp, or a light bulb, on the well pump to keep it warm and working.

3. Take the drier hose off, blow out the lint, turn the dryer on to warm up the washing machine pipes when they freeze.

And most importantly

4. Don't try to spray paint anything . . . the paint only sprays out like GODZILLA spewing a stream of fire. :)

It is so cold that Wednesday our school let out early and was canceled Thursday and today. Monday is a recognized holiday so that makes a five (5) day mini-winter holiday for me. Makes me want to shout out some "it's so cold" jokes.

get through the crowds . . .

My brother made the boys two gun racks for Christmas to house the GUNS I BOUGHT. You bought WHAT you ask? Yup, I bought me some guns. And that is plural. Not just one.

WOW, what an experience I had at the gun show. It is a whole new world of people that I really never thought I would be rubbing elbows with. We (Weihrocky and his older boys, and Patrick and one of his sons) went last Saturday to the gun show in Allen county. The have the gun show the first weekend of the month around here. I was actually planning to go to the one in December but had a conflicting schedule with looking at houses. So, we decided to make it for the January show.

We got there around 9:30 am and the parking lot at the fair grounds was packed! We proceeded to get in line to pay our entrance fee, and after we secured that we would be able to look at all the weapons everyone brought, everyone just followed the leader around, up and down the isles looking at all the guns, knives, pistols, and hunting gear that was on display for sale. Having lived in Los Angeles for years and dealing with large crowds of people, I broke rank and scanned the the whole room to find the traffic pattern. Asher, Nolan and I used our big city navigation to get through the crowds and find what we were looking for. We were there for two things. A 20 gauge shotgon, and a 22 caliber semi-automatic rifle. The men that went with us went mostly to look, and to sell a couple of guns, but to help me find the right guns to buy. They were REALLY helpful in that I know nothing about guns and would not know which ones that were right for us. Worked out that I got exactly what I wanted, for a fair price, and am really happy about our choices. In fact, twelve people offered to buy the rifle from me as I walked around the gun show with it. On Sunday Steve helped us "scope it in" and we spent the afternoon shooting. I really had more fun than I planned!

making guests at ease . . .

Before, and at the early part of our marriage, Ildi and I both worked in the restaurant business as service staff. Waiting tables and working with the public to meet their food and beverage needs. (it is a job that each person should experience for a least two years; compulsory service to one's country:) Ildi worked at both Mimi's Cafe and the Olive Garden, and I worked at the Olive Garden and the Claim Jumper. All places we worked ran differently as companies, and all prepared us to work hard and develop a sense of "hustle" while we worked. In fact, in several conversations we have had since our "slinging hash" days, we recognized that those experiences we had while serving in that business has helped prepare us for parenting, hosting, and for life. In many ways it has also helped me to see the larger picture and to work more efficiently in the classroom as well. In today's post, I want to share a practical practice at our home that has drawn on those experiences and has become a standard way of of providing for people who come to our home.

When you go to a restaurant, invariable you are greeted, seated, and for the most part, taken care of. The same thing should apply when people enter your home. I find it makes people at ease when you greet them, welcome them, and then TELL them what you want them to do. Most of the time people greet and welcome visitors alright, but then there is the awkward time of a few minutes while the guest navigates what he or she must do based on hints from the host. They stand, sit, or follow the host around getting clues along the way as to what to do with themselves. Instead, what we do is to explicitly tell our guest what we want them to do. The sooner the better. For example, if you are finished with all the work in preparation for your guests, say something like "let's go sit and talk for a bit" and then give them a choice of places to sit. "You can sit either here or there" pointing to the places you would like them to chose from. It might seem like you are bossing them around, but remember your visits and how comfortable it feels when the host tells you what to do. Nothing is left for you to navigate through. It's easy just to follow the directions. In addition, it is also good to get them something to drink right away. Not because they come to your house parched and are expecting to get refreshed by entering your home, but when they are thirsty, they will already have something waiting on them to drink. What we usually do is give them another choice. "Would you like coffee or water to drink?" as an example. We assume that they will have one or the other. We never ask them IF they want something to drink. Why? Because they always say "No" to be polite! So we just assume, and give them the choice. If they say they want nothing to drink, again being polite, we just give them a glass of water. Always.